The Paradise Lake Haunting

Summary: Whispered rumors of the "13 steps to hell" lure a gang of goth teens to the notorious Paradise Lake Cemetery. Some spirits are better left to rest in peace...

The Paradise Lake Haunting

"I heard someone died there."

The
voices of the townspeople, my classmates, and family blend into one as I sit
upon the hood of my car, smoking my morning cigarette. Paradise Lake Cemetery
stares back at me, tempting me with its gateless entrance, but I know better.
I'm not new to Maltby, Washington. As I admire the cemetery from afar, I keep a
close watch on the house sharing its property. A heavyset man steps out the
backdoor, smoking his own cigarette as he, too, stares out at the graves. We
share the same morning routine. I can't help but wonder what else we have in
common, but I don't think I'll ever get a chance to find out. I toss my
cigarette on the gravel road, straighten my black trench coat, and scramble
into my car before he sees me – before he has the chance to lump me in with all
the other goth teenagers that ogle at his cemetery. I take one last look at the
graveyard before driving past the line of abandoned cars on the side of the
road, speeding off to school.

By
the time I make it to my first period class, my friends Emma and Peter are
already huddled together in the back of the room, their jackets almost morphing
into a single black blob. I slide my backpack off my shoulders as I take a seat
beside them.

"You're
still down for a Halloween movie marathon tonight, right, Danny?" Emma
asks me, rotating in her seat to face me.

"Of
course. I can't skip our annual tradition."

She
smiles and I smile back, my cheeks flushing. Even if I didn't like horror
movies, it'd be impossible to say no to that smile.

"Are
you seriously planning a movie night on Halloween?" the boy sitting two
desks away asks with a smirk. A trio of boys in black surrounds him, like he's
the king of darkness – or at least wannabe goth kids - just as he wants to
believe. He folds his arms behind his head and leans back in his chair.

Emma
blushes and curls her fists, but she doesn't respond to him.

"Mind
your own business, Jason," Peter says. "Emma's not your girlfriend
anymore, so why do you care about her plans?"

"I
don't care about Emma," Jason says with a cold laugh. "It's
posers like you three that piss me off. It's like you don't even know what day
it is today."

Jason
rolls his eyes. "It's Halloween, duh."

"It's
the 30th anniversary of Morgan Shelley's death," I
say, giving him the stink eye. "We know what day it is. We just have the
decency to not talk about it."

"Morgan
Shelley was one of us." Jason cocks his head at his friends. "What
better to do than honor a fellow goth than to follow in her footsteps down the
crypt of the Paradise Lake Cemetery?" He turns up his nose. "It would
be more than decent. It'd be respectful."

"Trespassing
in a private cemetery is not respectful. It's literally part of the
Doolittle family's backyard. If they catch you sneaking in, they'll arrest
you."

"Don't
you mean it's owned by Satanists?" one of Jason's friends asks, a goofy
smile spread on his chapped lips. "That's why they built that spooky crypt
with the 13 steps leading to hell."

"Yeah,"
another one says. "They say if you make it to the 13th step, you see your soul burning in hell. Everyone who's made it
that far goes insane – or in Morgan's case, they die." He wiggles
his fingers to emphasize the horrible spookiness of the crypt.

I
hold my head in my black gloved palm. "No. The Doolittles aren't Satanists
and the 13 steps don't exist anymore. They've been demolished years ago because
of stupid bat kids or whatever the hell you label yourselves vandalizing the
cemetery. All that's left is the dumb rumors about it being haunted. Everyone
knows that Morgan died of alcohol poisoning because she, like all the other
idiots who snuck into the cemetery, was drunk out of her mind."

Jason
and his friends roar with laughter. Once he catches his breath, Jason says,
"If you care so much about your little cemetery, then why don't you come
with us and prove the rumors are fake?"

Emma
squeezes my arm. "Don't listen to him. He's just trying to get a rise out
of you."

It
takes every ounce of willpower in my body to ignore her. The thought of Jason
and his friends sneaking into the cemetery, doing God knows what to dig up the
steps, is already haunting me, and I know it will keep bugging me all night
long unless I am there with him. "Fine. I'll go with you."

Emma
stares at me in disbelief, and the look remains as I give her a ride home from
school that afternoon. She leans her head against the inside of the car,
dangling her cigarette out the window between black painted fingernails, and
she won't stop staring at me with those stunning blue eyes. "I can't
believe you agreed to it," she says for the millionth time.

"Well,
I can't believe you dated that asshole Jason for a year."

She
bites her bottom lip. "Our high school has a limited selection of goth
guys."

Wow.
I guess Peter and I aren't good enough for her. I take a deep breath and try to
hide my frustration, keeping my gaze on the road ahead of me.

"If you're trying to prove your gothiness
or whatever to Jason – "

"That's
not what I care about," I interrupt. I pull up to the side of the road,
across the street from the cemetery, holding my cigarette out my window.
"This is what I care about."

She
sits up and peers outside, then turns to look at me, her bottle-black hair
whipping around her face. "Is this the place?"

I
nod. "I sit here every morning, just staring at it."

She
furrows her brow. "Are you like. . ."

"I'm
not crazy," I answer, predicting the rest of her question, "but I'm
not stupid. I know our local lore. There's something weirdly alluring about a
haunted cemetery."

"What,
you actually believe in ghosts?" She laughs, but I know she doesn't think
it's funny.

I
stare out at the gravestones, carefully selecting my words. "I want to. I
want to believe there's something else out there. Something bigger, something
better. So I come here every morning, waiting for a sign. I know it's weird,
but the thought of life after death is comforting to me." I can feel her
eyes burning through my black jacket. "I lost my dad when I was twelve.
Any sign that there's something out there, that I have a chance at seeing him
again. . ." I take another deep breath. "While I want to believe in
ghosts, I can't stand when people like Jason use rumors as an excuse to snoop
around graves. If I can prove the rumors aren't true, maybe people will leave
this cemetery alone. The thought of anyone hurting something so important to me
is sickening."

She
bows her head, her face hidden behind her bangs. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't
have asked."

Emma
doesn't speak to me as we continue our drive. She doesn't look at me, either.
To break the uncomfortable silence, I turn on the radio. A song by The Cure is
playing and it makes her smile, but only for a moment. If I had known showing
her the cemetery on the way home would take away her smile, I wouldn't have
done it.

She
keeps the conversation between us to a minimum as we watch movies at her house.
While I hope we aren't making Peter feel too awkward, I’m more worried about
Emma. I didn't think she'd be that affected by what I said, but she's still
silent in the car ride to the cemetery, and Peter is still eating pizza in the
backseat.

"I
seriously think we should've just stayed at your place," he says to Emma.
"We could've gotten more pizza. This box is almost out."

"You
had like half the pizza," she mutters.

"That's
because you guys hardly had any. I wasn't gonna let it go to waste."

We
drive past a line of smashed cars, shoved into trees at the side of the road.
Without those landmarks, it'd be impossible to find the cemetery, as it's
tucked away in a forest, hidden from the public eye. I park my car behind
Jason's. He's already standing outside the cemetery with his three goth
cronies.

"You're
late," he spits.

"It's
twelve o' one," I say, rolling my eyes. I glance at the Doolittle house.
Not a single window is illuminated by light. "C'mon. Let's get this over
with."

The
second I step foot on the cemetery's grass, I feel as if I'm crossing through
an invisible veil of dread. After months of watching the cemetery, I'm finally
across the street, and everything feels off. It's colder on this side of the
road. I'm not supposed to be here and the tombstones know it. It's like they're
watching me, shouting at the Doolittles to call the police. It doesn't help
that every other tombstone belongs to a Doolittle, though there really aren't
many tombstones period. Only a couple dozen, scattered about the grassy field.
From across the street, the cemetery would always appear foreboding and
enormous. But now that I stand on the inside, it seems so much smaller, more
personal. Too personal. Like I'm not even in a cemetery, just the backyard of
the Doolittle family. I'm not sure if I'm relieved there's nothing spooky here
or disappointed.

But
before I can say anything, Jason shouts, "Guys! I think I found it!"
He stands next to a cement slab tucked away in the tall grass. His fingers wrap
around the rusty handle.

My
heart drops into my stomach. "It's gonna be locked," I say. But to my
dismay, he lifts the slab, revealing a staircase leading underground. We all
stand around the hole in the ground, our jaws dropped in shock.

There
are 13 cement steps.

For
about a minute, no one speaks. I've always heard the steps were destroyed, but
here they are, staring back at us, waiting for someone to make a move.

Jason
clears his throat. "Well, Danny. You said you were gonna prove to me that
the 13 steps aren't haunted. So prove it."

As
much as I'd hate to worry her, I know I can't just stand back. I have to prove
that the steps are not haunted, yet at the same time, part of me wants them to
be. After staring at the cemetery day after day, waiting for a sign, this could
finally be my chance to see for myself if the rumors are true. To see if there
really is there really is some sort of life after death, that I will see my
father again someday. For his sake and my own, I have to do it. I have to go
down there. I look from Emma to Jason, then to the steps. "I won't get
hurt," I assure her, peering down the staircase. At the bottom is cement
floor, nothing else. At least, not that I can see. "I can't be hurt by
something that doesn't exist."

I
walk onto the first step. Then the second. So far, nothing's happening. I'm
still sane on step three, four, five.

It's
not until step six that I begin to feel lightheaded. It hits me out of nowhere.
It's as if some terrible force sucked all the blood away from my head. I can't
hear anything. I can't hear the worried whispers of the others, the wind rustling
through the trees. I hold onto the cement wall for support as I reach step
seven. My stomach churns, violent and angry, hating me for agreeing to come
down here. My hands are freezing. My face, the inside of my body is freezing. I
struggle to reach step eight, but when I do, I mind is flooded by anxiety. I'm
overwhelmed by a sense of dread, terror, and incoming doom. I'm not sure what
it is exactly that I'm afraid of, I just know that I am terrified and have
every right to be. I can't breathe. I can't feel my legs. I feel like I'm
dying.

But
I can hear.

I
cover my ears as my skull is filled with panicked, deafening screams. I can't
take this anymore. I run as fast as my numb legs can take me, back up the
stairs. With each step, my symptoms are immediately relieved, but the screaming
continues. Once I get to the top of the stairs, I realize the screaming isn't
in my head. It's Emma, Peter, Jason, and his friends, all in panic.

"Will
you keep it down?" I whisper. "We're gonna get caught! Cops are always
circling around this area at night!"

"Y-you
disappeared!" Peter cries, clinging onto Emma. "When you made it to
the sixth step, you were gone!"

I
raise my eyebrow, my eyes widening, but I try to smile and stay calm.
"What are you talking about? I was there the whole time."

"It's
not," I say. I can't let him know what I felt. If anyone – especially
Jason – finds out the steps are in fact haunted, this cemetery will never be
left in peace. "You guys were just imagining things."

"Liar!"
Jason shouts. "It's haunted! It has to be! I saw you disappear! I'll go
down there myself to prove it!"

"No,
don't!" I blurt, but he and his three friends push past me, stomping down
the steps.

Emma,
Peter, and I all watch in horror as one of the friends disappears on step six,
like he never existed. Jason and the other two make it to the thirteenth
step, onto the floor.

And
then, they scream.

I
want to run, but I can't. My legs are immobilized by fear. Their screams, a
mixture of terror and agony, are beyond anything I have ever heard in any
horror movie. They twitch and thrash, like something is attacking them, but all
I can see is the three boys fighting against something invisible. Emma's
hands are clasped over her mouth and she's crying. Peter drops to his knees in
a trembling mess.

"It's
okay, guys," I say. "They're just faking to scare us." But I'm
not fooling anyone.

One
of the boys collapses to the ground, still as a doll. Jason and his other
friend scramble up the stairs, the one that disappeared suddenly reappearing as
they pass step six.

"What
did you guys see?" Peter asks them.

Jason
and his two remaining friends fail to answer. Their bodies shake in a violent
frenzy, their faces sickeningly pale, their eyes wide and watery.

"Guys,
he isn't moving!" Emma shrieks, pointing to the boy laying at the bottom
of the crypt. "I-I think he's dead!"

"What
the hell is going on out here?"

It's
the heavyset man. He marches to us from across the lawn in his pajamas, his
sagging face twisted with anger.

Jason
and his friends don't even look back. They continue screaming as they rush out
of the cemetery, into their car. But they don't make it far. The car swerves as
Jason attempts to speed away, crashing full-force into a nearby tree on the
side of the road, joining the collection of destroyed cars. The tree splits
through the middle of the hood. Emma's sobs grow to a wail as she runs to the
car, but her legs give out halfway through the cemetery, and she tumbles into
the grass. She buries her face in her arms as she screams and cries Jason's
name.

Three
police cars pull up to the cemetery, their flashing lights blinding in the
night. Cops pile out of the cars, some surrounding Jason's accident, the others
running into the cemetery. I fall to my knees. Everything around me bleeds into
a blur. A nightmare. The heavyset man continues to shout at us, more members of
his family rushing out of the house. A firetruck and ambulance arrive at the
scene of the crash, removing unrecognizable, bloody corpses from the demolished
car. The police drag me and my friends into the back of a car, handcuffing our
wrists behind our backs. Emma's screaming at me, claiming it's my fault that
Jason died since I lied about the steps not being haunted. Tears continue to
stream down her face as she threatens to never speak to me again, but I'm
unfazed. None of it feels real, but I know it will tomorrow as my mom and
stepdad punish me for my arrest, when Jason and his friends don't return to
first period, when I remember how Emma cried over Jason's death, when she refuses
to speak to me, when I don't return Paradise Lake Cemetery.

When I realize there's something else out there.

Write a Review
Did you enjoy my story? Please let me know what you think by leaving a review! Thanks,
Maria K.G.

kotabsavage91:
This young author really knows her stuff. From the 1st chapter I was sucked in and entertained the book. The characters are rich and well thought out and the plot keeps you guessing all the way through to an imaginatively well exacuted showdown. Keep up the great work, I look forward to more of ...

Hemanth Thiyagarajan:
MA'AM the story was really good as well as the plot and your catchy writing style.Would i were give a rating it would 9 out of 10A few drawbacks were that you hinted about the upocoming danger in the nd of each chapter of the beginning i felt that it was not necessary only once you could have put...

Aditya Harikrish:
It had me on tenterhooks since the very first page. Excllently developed plot and characters. You've done an amazing job of building a fantasy world from scratch. Hats off to you!A sequel is a must.

Sammy Styles:
It is one of those stories that keeps you on the hook till the last moment. A roll of pictures were piling up and with continuous moving, it was like I was watching a film. The scenes were dramatic with a bit of every emotion. The story contains every essence of mystery, romance and adventur...

Victoria Lovett:
I really enjoyed reading this. The ending was a very nice twist. I never expected that. Overall this has been one of the best books I've read in a long while. Excellent work. I would buy this as a real book instead of just one on my phone if I had the chance.

Deleted User:
What a story. It may be short and small but it is mighty and massive in creativity. However, I did not feel any romance in the story rather than a lot of horror. It was a great read and I cannot wait to see what this author has next on the agenda. Sometimes short stories have the best content and...

Juzme34:
Once I started reading I didn't want to stop. A few minor grammatical errors caught my attention, but a quick edit can fix those. I found the main character's view interesting, and her thinking process a bit odd. Yet it was easy to follow her train of thought. The story ends with the reader wanti...

Pam Lobato Ceja:
The plot is interesting although for me the ending feels a bit rushed, since a lot happens in very few pages. I did notice a few grammar mistakes here & there, but nothing too noticeable.Overall, I enjoyed this greatly.

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